Pumpkinseeds....

[bmc]

What is everyone's biggest pumpkinseed? I've caught a few last summer and this winter that were in the 8-9" range. Man they sure are a pretty fish! I see the state record is 10.1 inches long, according to the MN DNR site. I think having a trio of 'seeds on a piece of driftwood would be cool. Does anyone have any pics of monster seeds they've caught or got on the wall?

Brian

[Matt Johnson]

My brother caught one around 9.5 inches a couple weeks back. He hasn't been ice fishing in over a year and he caught that one of his first drop!! A very bright colored fish. I agree, pumkinseeds are great looking fish!

Here's a couple shots of some pumkinseeds in the 8-9 inch range...

My brother with a nice pumkinseed

bhorn with a pumkinseed

9 1/4 inch hybrid

9 inch pumkinseed

Good Fishin,

Matt Johnson

[protrapper]

Grebe,

You are right those fish in the pics are not true pumpkinseeds. They are hybrids. And the one looks like a green sunfish, not sure though. On some photos they look like a mix of alot of sunfish species.

[The Grebe]

I don't know? Far be it from me to question your photos of Pumpkinseeds, but are you sure that the various fish in the pictures are really Pumpkinseeds?

To me, one looks like a hybred, more sunfish then Pumpkinseed and the one on the ice has the markings of a Bluegill? These things must cross breed?

The Pumpkinseeds I have seen and caught are stout, blocky fish with big chests and broad shoulders? Even the little guys are built like that. Lots of brilliant colors, orange, reds, blues, greens, blacks and combinations that make them really distinctive, to me they don't even look close to a sunfish in colors, and build, aside from the ovaline shape.

I believe that the true Pumpkinseed is the most beautifully colored fish we have in out waters.

I drew a colored picture of one, way back when I was in 5th grade and between that and a writing I submitted to sports caster Rollie Johnsons contest, on channel 4, I won a Zebco, one piece spinning outfit when they first came out, I was one of 5 winners and I believe the Pumpkinseed pic turned the tables in my favor! Boy, alot of moons have passed since that time!

I never keep them, even the pretty good sized ones, to me they don't taste like a regular sunfish, they have more of a sweet taste? Just some thoughts there, Mr. J! (Hey, was Rollie Johnson any relation to you?)

[Matt Johnson]

Yep, some of them I'm sure are hybrids, but others are pumpkins. So many different strands of sunfish and so many different hybrids now. You guys are probably right, I'm not too technical on my sunfish species as much as I should be, but I believe one or two of those are pumpkins...

Good Fishin,

Matt Johnson

[CrappieJohn]

When the ice is gone and the water begins to warm, identification will be a much easier task. I think much of the colorful "plumage" is governed by available light and how close it is to spawning season.

[FI Guide]

Whatever they are they are some nice fish. Great job Matt.

[Matt Breuer]

Personally I think the term "hybrid" gets thrown around too much. Hybrids are actually much rarer than people think. Did you know that roughly 98% of hybrids are male??

All of the fish in those pics look like pumpkinseeds to me, bland for a 'seed, but pumpkinseeds none the less. Hybrids typically are bland in color and have noticably larger mouths. They're definitely not greens.

Tom is right, they're tough to decipher this time of year, and when the sun shines bright and they sit shallow, it's a ton easier to i.d. them!

[protrapper]

Who cares they all fight hard and taste real good!!

[Matt Breuer]

Exactly!!

[Royce Aardahl]

A christmas punkinseed

[bmc]

Here's a nice 'seed from Little Cutfoot Sioux lake, just north of here. This was at first ice, pucker time as I like to call it! I didn't have my tape measure that day, but using my thumb and pinky spread apart, I think he was right around 8.5". He was CPR'd, although now that I think about it, he'd look nice on some driftwood with a couple of his kin.

Brian

[CrappieJohn]

Punkies are a beautiful fish. I had a friend who had four of them mounted on a piece of driftwood as mentioned in this thread. He built a top and bottom frame by cutting a cicle of particle board in half, with the cut edgemated to a picture frame. He routed a 1/4" groove on both the top and bottom so that when a picture( he used an attractive but inexpensive underwater scene) was placed in it, it created a semi-circle background. He built this into a corner enclosure in his rec room, wired it for a light, put some rock and gravel on the bottom, slipped the mount in and hung the frame in front of it. There was a small toggle switch for the lightin one corner of the frame and he'd turn this on to show the fish and it looked as though you were looking into their watery world. Awesome.

Some of the brightest colored punkis I have seen come from the Mississippi River backwaters.

[M.T. Bucket]

http://www.vic.com/~bassmstr/quiz/bmtvquiz.html

I got 31 of 37 right - the sunfish are the hardest.

Another interesting site for panfish (with range maps)...

http://www.roughfish.com/pan.html

[ironman]

37 out of 37!

Good job...my results will be emailed to me as well as my instructor. Who's my instructor?

wasn't sure on the redeared sunfish..but made my best questimate and it was right...woo hoo. Now if I could just find those on the lake when it counts.

[The Grebe]

33 out of 37...I can live with that...the ones I missed I don't fish for anyways.

[delmuts]

soooo , you don't fish for the ones you miss? hmmmmm! hey grebe ! is the ice melting up there ??? i smell open water ! del

[The Grebe]

del.. nah, not much, snow is going though. Some of the creeks have open spots in them, and I seen a couple of pond with beaver feed piles in them that were open around the piles.

I did go past one lake that looked kind of bumpy, but there has been negligible ice melt from what I have seen, nothing to get ones shorts in a bunch over.

Temp is supposed to start dropping again soon, I guess we got our January thaw in Feburary?

[Wayne Ek]

Del.. it's mushy and wet but still good ice, lot's of ice. The ottertail river is running hard and I got one afternoon of open water in... no fish. Do you think the raccoon river over by Sac City Iowa is fishable yet? Up here first ice was one week late, the Jan. thaw is in Feb. I sure hope ice out does not come a week or so late.

[delmuts]

wayne. i can't help you on that area. it is about 130 mi. west of me. you mite try a question on the iowa forum. i know some of the guys are from that area. del